Despite the fact that everyone knows there's connections between sex and drug use, it's something that's not really talked about. When did your drugs 'counsellor' ever ask you when you last had an orgasm (outside of your personal relationship, that is)? And as for getting information about the topic of sex and drugs from treatment agencies, well that's nigh on impossible. So we thought we'd try and kick off a bit of a debate about this important and neglected topic. Over the next few issues, we're going to look at the link, starting with the opiates. We hope you're both entertained and informed by this, but it would be even better if you'd let us have your views on this. Write and tell us (no mucky fantasies please!) what your experience is of the link between sex and drugs.

NO 1: SEX AND OPIATES: NO ROCK'N'ROLL?

Opium, Tired Lances and Errol Flynn

If you're a bloke and you're looking for something to put a little lead in your pencil, or you're a woman who is looking for something to give that bit of an edge to sex, you'd probably better forget heroin and methadone. Opium has its fans though:

“Opium is terrific for fantasy (and) even better for performance. According to the ancient Chinese 'Chin P'ing Mei', even a little opium will give life to a tired lance, ‘assuring the desideratum of at least 3,000 phallic thrusts.’ Step right up and count 'em. Opium also has a mild anaethetising effect-strategically placed, it provides a pleasant numb feeling and delays orgasm to the benefit of both parties.”
Taken from hippie drug bible High Times Encyclopaedia

Three-thousand 'phallic thrusts'? Poor woman, is all I can say. And opium 'strategically placed'? I hope we're not talking about suppositories here. But it isn't only the hippies from High Times who think opium is good for your sex life. Errol Flynn, who supposedly knew a thing or two about sex, describes in his autobiography My Wicked, Wicked Ways, how he visited an opium den in the company of a young Chinese woman with the improbable name of Ting Ling. After Errol had smoked a few pipes he retired to another room with his companion:

"When I took Ting Ling to another room I had never known I was capable of such feats. Today I'm told that the effect of opiates removes sexual desire in the man in inverse ratio to the female, who becomes more excited. Dr Flynn can tell you that such is not the case. I made love to Ting Ling in ways and manners that I would never have dreamed myself capable of."

Well maybe, but opium never had that effect on me. In my view, the opiates and sex don't really mix. There's some truth in what's being said here. When you first start using gear, you do discover that you can get a lob on that'll last all night. In fact, it can be pretty good, if you're a bloke. I can't really comment on how women actually see it. Some I've met claim they like a feller who can keep going all night. Myself, I'd have thought it'd get a bit wearing. Some daft sod doing endless press ups with the aid of your body. But I learned a long time ago that there's no accounting for people's tastes when it comes to pummelling.

Hello Heroin, Bye Bye Desire

So that's how it starts. You can go all night. Bags of stamina and delayed orgasm. Although sometimes it's not just delayed, more indefinitely postponed. Someone told me once that this is how some Chinese guys start chasing. Apparently, the Chinese believe that when you come, you lose Chi (spiritual energy). And, unless you're making babies, you should avoid coming. No 2 smoking mixture guarantees no/delayed orgasm, so some of them get right into it. There's some research on US addicts that supports the idea that users might begin heroin, partly, because of the link with sex. Only here, the problem isn't loss of chi but kind of general anxieties about sex or fear of premature ejaculation (coming too soon). One piece of research found that 45% of heroin using males had moderate or severe premature ejaculation before heroin use, as compared with only 12% after heroin use. So heroin can sort out any neurosis you might have about sex, as well as being able to stop you wetting the inside of your pants just as you're taking them off.

There's a bit of irony here. Some people start using gear because they want to improve their sexual performance, but pretty soon lose all interest in sex at all. As one female American addicts said:

"Junkies notoriously do not fuck, and the worst of it is you forget that you're missing something. You wake up one day and realise you haven't had sex in months and you didn't even notice"

Now you can look at this lack of interest ('loss of libido' as the quacks call it) in a few different ways.

Not being interested in getting laid is sometimes paralleled by a lack of interest in personal hygiene. If you've no libido, are you really worried if you haven't had a bath or shower for a few weeks, or still got the same shreddies on from last Xmas? Who cares if you've had the same jeans on for a month, complete with customised bloodstains and cig burns on the front? You're not exactly going to be hanging about in some café bar on the pull? Just think what a favour you're doing the opposite sex. At least they don't have to sleep with you, you dirty bastard.
And, when you think about all the anxiety that sex does cause, well aren't you better off without it? 'Was I any good?' 'Did s/he enjoy it?' 'Is my todger too small?' All that shit goes out of the window. And when you think of all those religious nuts over the centuries, who've had to whip themselves, wear hair shirts etc, just to keep from thrashing their bishops, well shame they didn't know about gear. And just think, no more wank mags, balls of Kleenex or used condoms stuck to the carpet underneath the bed.

Yeah, the picture's pretty clear as far as heroin goes. Generally speaking, what the research shows (and there's not that much of it) is that heroin users have lowered sex drive and potency, are less likely to have sex, masturbate (wank) or achieve orgasm (come). Not surprising really, one explanation for the loss of desire and the ability to make your old man stand to attention is that heroin blocks the release of adrenaline into your system which decreases energy and also dilates blood vessels, squeezing blood away from your penis or your clitoris if you're female. A study of female heroin users showed 60% reporting reduced desire (libido). Then there's the fact that heroin is a painkiller, so it's bound to reduce sensitivity. For example, one third of female users in another US study had excess pain during sex before using heroin, while only 6% reported pain during sex after using heroin.

No Sex Please. We're on Methadone

But what about methadone? Some studies say methadone has exactly the same effects as heroin. But does methadone cause more sexual problems than heroin? Some studies say heroin is worse than methadone for shutting down your sex drive. Others say methadone is worse, with two saying methadone produces higher rates of failure of orgasm than heroin. In fact, whether methadone or heroin is worse for your sex life depends on what study you read. But you've got to remember dose here. Dose (how much) is probably a very important factor in shaping sexual side effects. Just think about booze. Another thing here might be the slowness with which methadone is metabolised in our bodies. This must have an effect on how our sex organs work. When heroin is leaving your body is when your old man starts waking up. Just think about withdrawal and the stirrings of sexual feelings then. And one study (you just have to wonder what motivates some people to get involved in research) found that 'ejaculate volume' (how much fluid you produce when you come) was reduced by over 50% in methadone clients.

Using the results of experiments with methadone addicted rats, some people, have even gone so far as to suggest that methadone patients should be given shots of testosterone, to stop their sexual organs dying off from underuse! Against all this though, the Methadone Handbook (best handy reference guide to the slime) says, "Some methadone users report increased sexual desire as a result of taking methadone". But this may well be because of the stability and reduction of aggravation being on a script can give you, rather than anything about meth itself.

Rebound Effects: The ‘Spitting Bishop Syndrome’

And no discussion of sex and the opiates should omit something I referred to a moment ago, namely the rebound effects when the opiates leave your system. If opiates put your sex drive (and your bowels) into deep freeze, then beware the thaw. Spontaneous ejaculation (what we quacks refer to as 'spitting bishop syndrome') is a not uncommon feature of withdrawal, and your bishop is certainly functioning on a hair trigger, (see "A Personal Journey" in this issue). While an unpleasant feeling in your groin and images in your head tell you desire is reawakening. Frankly, it's something you can do without, when you feel as bad as you do when you're turkeying. Although one US study quotes an addict as saying "Sex is best when the junk wears off, just before getting sick." Each to their own I suppose.

Sexual Games With Needles

Finally, one last thing. That old shit about injecting and sex. Sigmund Freud, you have a lot to answer for (besides turning the world onto Charlie). Followers of Freud proceed on the assumption that everything can be reduced to sex, and that its some variety or other of sexual misery that leads to addiction in the first place. From that idea it's a short step to proposing that injecting gear is a substitute for sex. Here's some American buffoon on the topic;

"Over and over again one hears addicts describe the effects of their injection in sexual terms. One addict said that after a fix he felt as if he were coming from every pore. Another said that he used to inject the solution in a rhythmic fashion until it was all used up, and said this was akin to masturbation only better."

Oh, come on, please! The things you have to say to get a script! Though it makes a change from having to talk about what happened in the woodshed between you and your Uncle Walter. If addiction is about sexual games with needles, then nobody told me. I always thought I injected because it was an efficient and cheap way of delivering drugs to my brain. The idea that because the opiates destroy physical sex for addicts, it only leaves them with fantasy sex via injecting is bollocks. The problem with these psychiatrists is that they fit everything into their theories. And one of the problems of being a junkie is that you feel you have to confirm their theories for them. If you want them to do anything for you that is. In fact, the truth about addiction is now so totally obscured in the theories of psychologists and psychiatrists, it's doubtful if we'll ever be able to construct an account that does justice to the reality of the problem. And half of this problem is that drug users get to believe these daft ideas as well and reproduce them when prompted.

Let's leave the last word with that old pathologist of addiction, your Uncle Bill Burroughs:

"If all pleasure is relief from tension, junk affords relief from this whole life process. Junk suspends the cycle of tension."

Maybe that's what opiates and sex have in common, relief from tension. Only with gear, we end up suspending the cycle entirely.

NEXT ISSUE; 'SEX GOES BETTER WITH COKE?'